Back to the Future: Real Community, Real Lawyers, and the Web We Once Knew

Hamish McKenzie–a veteran journalist, 21 year publisher and co-founder of Substack–inspired the heck out of me with his post yesterday, “Civilization on the Electronic Frontier.”

I’m not the Chief Writing Officer around here, as he is at Substack, but I’m honored to share the views he expresses about real sharing, real engagement, and real publishing by real people. All driven by real care.

“It is not normal,” Hamish writes, “for human communication to be so distorted and dominated by algorithmic feeds that serve opaque commercial incentives.”

I was there just after these Internet exchanges first started—30 years ago now, though it doesn’t feel like it.

The early web wasn’t driven by algorithms—it was driven by people. People who shared what they knew, and cared enough to help. Communities formed around what people had to say. People conected in a real and intimate fashion.

Before Google ruled search. Before LinkedIn became a feed of curated headlines. Before Facebook’s algorithm decided who saw what. All good in and of themselves and each of which I use a lot, there was something simpler—and something that now seems much more authentic

Howard Rheingold, a pioneer in digital culture, with his book The Virtual Community, described what I was experiencing as a plaintiff’s trial lawyer in the 1990’s.

People building trust and connection online through Usenet groups, message boards, listservs, bulletin boards, AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy and more.

The lawyers who participated did so not with marketing messages, but by sharing helpful information and insight—and by engaging in real conversations with peers and the public.

I stumbled into that world via AOL, where legal message boards were thriving. I could log on and answer questions about the areas of law I knew something about–personal injury, workers compensation, medical practice and employment disputes.

I also shared something simple but essential: how to find and trust a good lawyer. It’s still something most people don’t know how to do—despite all the money law firms spend on websites, content marketing, and SEO that chases algorithms more than connection.

I did so not to generate work—though that happened—but because it felt like the right thing to do. And because it helped people.

It was community. It was law as service. It was publishing—shared to inform, not to impress.

McKenzie is spot on. We lost something along the way. We traded genuine connection for click-throughs. We turned thought leadership into SEO tactics, visibility and analytics. And in doing so, we allowed marketing to replace publishing—particularly in law.

But there’s a correction underway. Substack is a signal of that course correction. So is what we’re doing at LexBlog in building a legal publishing network.

Thousands of lawyers are still writing—some because a law firm tells them to, but many more because they have something to say. And they’re building trust, credibility, and relationships the old way: one thoughtful post at a time.

“The machine wants content. People want connection,” writes Hannish.

He was talking about publishing. But he could just as easily have been talking about the law—and the growing disconnect between lawyers and the legal system, and the people they’re meant to serve.

In the 1990s, I helped build legal communities—first on AOL, then Prairielaw.com and then at Lawyers.com–as Lawyers.com existed in the good days. We facilitated conversations, not campaigns. We, and the lawyers participating, believed that sharing information and insight was enough. It was. And still is.

Today, we have far better tools. But the same opportunity.

Every lawyer who chooses to publish—with care, with experience, with humility—is taking part in something bigger than a marketing strategy. They’re reclaiming the law as conversation. And they’re building community—real community—around what they know and how they serve.

These lawyers have built a heck of a business model around their publishing: authority, a strong name, real relationships, and a book of business that keeps giving—year after year—to them and their loved ones.

Ironically, the advances in AI are now rewarding this kind of authority—bypassing marketing content and outsmarting the algorithms.

Maybe now, finally, the Internet is catching up.